This study examined 44 students' engagement in the composition of popular and classical music in a computer-mediated environment. The study took place over the course of one school year at a government-funded secondary school in Hong Kong that had 30 iMac music workstations. Participants were 22 Form 3 students (aged 14-15) and 22 Form 4 students…

This article analyzes how embodied learning was enhanced in a project in which students made a music video with a tablet, combining music and movement compositions, in a Finnish seventh-grade music classroom. Student interviews and reflections, as well as researcher's field notes were used as material for the analysis. In the project, embodied…

The seminal conceptualisation of the varying forms of authorship associated with different creativities developed as social practices has deep implications for research into music education in secondary schools. One such type is 'participatory creativity', which is explored through a cross-cutting secondary school study. Aimed at the creation of a…

This pilot study focuses on the use of mobile tablets to allow secondary students to compose in class with the application "GarageBand." The empirical research has two aims: to demonstrate the possibility of using mobile tablets as a composing device, and to examine professional practices for using mobile technologies in music learning.…

This article presents a study investigating musical learning among 9th grade adolescents in a Swedish lower secondary school. The adolescents collaboratively composed songs for a self-written musical, which they taught to their peers. The purpose of the study was to explore the ways in which adolescents acquire musical knowledge in this specific…

This qualitative case study explores how students' perceptions of sexual identity affect how they participate in popular music processes used in school. Seventeen high school students were invited to form five single-gendered and mixed-gendered rock bands. The data collected included fieldnotes and audio recordings of observed rehearsals and…

Much composing that takes place in the lower secondary school is undertaken as a group activity. This paper investigates what is involved when pupils work in this way, and offers a model of processes and phases, which can be used to account for group composing. The model describes what is taking place, and charts the ways in which groups of pupils…

Although music was established as a compulsory subject in Spain by the 1990 constructivist reform, the 2002 counter-reform restricted it to lists of concepts, in a renewed encyclopaedist model for secondary schools that ignored authentic musical procedures, such as performing or composing. Contemporary adolescents, accustomed to the transmission…

This article considers the effectiveness and implications of the "Powerplus" composing project, in which teenage students were asked to write for a chamber ensemble in preparation for a public concert of their work. The perspectives of all participants are considered, with a view to understanding i) the developing identities of young…

This paper is the result of a research project that set out to document a group of adolescent musicians in a rural Australian secondary school as they wrote and performed their own music. The processes they developed are reflective of a cooperative approach to group composition where upwards of 21 students composed and "jammed" their way…